Fuzzy Backward Movement Control of a Mobile Robot with Two Trailers

Abstract

Backward movement control of articulated vehicles is one of the most difficult nonlinear control problems. Although the control problem of a mobile robot with one trailer has been reported in some papers, the control problem of a mobile robot with two trailers has not been completely solved yet. This paper describes backward movement control of a mobile robot with two trailers. Since the nonlinear model of the mobile robot can be represented by a Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model, parallel distributed compensation is employed to design a fuzzy controller from the fuzzy model. Furthermore, we analyze the stability of the designed fuzzy control system via Lyapunov approach. The stability conditions for fuzzy systems are characterized in terms of linear matrix inequalities which result in convex optimization problems. It is shown that the stable fuzzy controller effectively achieves backward movement control of the mobile robot with two trailers in both simulations and experiments.